Reminders
by Undead Author
Summary: The Doctor and Rose make sure they never forget each other. Ten/Rose, mentions of Nine/Rose


**A/N: Rose and the Doctor! Forever and ever and ever.**

"We should get tattoos."

The Doctor laughs as he sits up in bed to face Rose. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Oh, I don't know, because they're forever?"

"Not for you! You get a new body once like every three weeks," she teases him, and he's glad she's adjusting well to this slighter, bigger-haired, bespectacled new him.

"I do not and you know it." She kisses his knee, and it's those small intimate moments that cement his love for her in his mind—though he'd never say it aloud.

"Well, anyway, we should get tattoos. To remind each other of… well, each other." She props her head up on her hands and looks at him.

He thinks about it. She _is_ right, he will get a new body at some point. So why not?

She laughs incredulously when he agrees. "Great! I know this place in London, they owe me a favor anyway, and we could probably get them half off!"

The Doctor smiles and rolls his eyes because he knows he couldn't ever say no to her.

_xoxoxo_

Rose's tattoo is first. She showed the artist "Doctor" in Gallifreyan (she'd had the Doctor write it down for her on a scrap sheet of paper) and told him to put it on her left wrist and if he got it even a little bit wrong she could erase his existence from time itself. This got her a weird look and assurance that her tattoo would be as close to perfect as he could get it.

She smiles up at the Doctor, who is holding her hand and refuses to leave her side, no matter how much the artist asks him to. "You're gonna be great. You'll be fine. I promise. It'll be over like that." Constant words of reassurance wash over her and actually make her feel better, which is so _typical _of him, to make her feel better when no one else can.

Once the needle starts buzzing the Doctor loses circulation in his hand because Rose is squeezing it like it's going to save her life or something. She gasps when it presses against her skin and he's muttering Gallifreyan lullabies and Shakespearean sonnets and Hemingway and passages from the Bible and anything to soothe her because even the tiniest pained intake of breath causes him ten times more pain.

But she doesn't cry, his Rose, and he's so proud of her. And to see the language of his people displayed on her, it really makes him emotional. He loves her, there's no denying, and there's no questioning what he'd do for her.

He lies down on the chair—it's his turn now—and he kindly shows the man "Rose" in the swirling, beautiful language, and where to put it (over his right heart).

He winces as it's done, but Rose is stroking the back of his hand with her thumb, and that's all he can feel right then and it's so beautiful in a twisted sort of way, the two of them united by this pain.

_xoxoxo_

Later that day, they're back in the TARDIS and admiring their new additions. The Doctor keeps delicately taking her wrist and pressing his lips against it. She smiles and kisses him softly, knowing these parts of each other will (hopefully) always be there.

"I could stay forever with you, you know," she says, looking up at him from where they'd settled on their bed. "We could travel together."

He smiles but it isn't all there. He knew this deal. He'd never die and she'd grow old and he'd have to watch her grow old and her memories—her memories of _him—_ slip away. No. He wasn't one for lifetime companionship, but if there were one person he'd want it from, it would be Rose.

He kisses her on her forehead and smiles again. "Wouldn't that be something."

"And these—" She motions to their tattoos— "will always be here to remind us of each other. Our times together."

"Oh, and what times we've had, Rose Tyler." She loves that after all this time he still calls her by her full name on occasions. "The Ood. Daleks. New New York." She's smiling as she remembers these things, too.

"And no matter what happens, you'll always be here." He taps his chest where the tattoo is and pulls her hand over it to feel the beating. "Rose," he says simply, and she knows what he means.

She loves him too.

_xoxoxo_

It's been a few weeks since the Doctor made Rose a duplicate of himself. A few years since they were last truly together. And it still hurts. The memories, the little reminders everywhere he went.

The regeneration hurt more than it should have. Just because he knows if he ever saw her again (unlikely but still entirely possible or at least that's what he tells himself) she wouldn't recognize him at all. He's even smaller than last time and his _hair_! He looks like a girl.

As he stands in his (their) bedroom, shirtless, he looks in the mirror. He's definitely scrawnier than his past regeneration, but that's not what he's looking at.

He's looking at the lack of ink on the right of his chest. That's it. No more "Rose". No more reminder every time he gets dressed that he spent the best two years with the love of his life, and he wouldn't trade it for anything. No more touching it and feeling his connection with her.

It's a few days till he realizes that he doesn't need a stupid tattoo to remember her. As soon as he thinks it he wants to hit himself in the head because it's so ridiculously cheesy, but it wasn't what was over his heart, it was what was inside it. And Rose will always be there, ink or not.

He gets the tattoo again anyway. Just because.

**You know what you should do?**

**Review.**


End file.
